National LambdaRail A Fiber-based Research Infrastructure Vice-Provost for Scholarly Technology University of Southern California Chair of the CENIC Board NLR Board Member Terena Networking Conference TNC 2004 Rhodes, Greece June 08 th, 2004 light the future N L R John Silvester

2 Two Drivers for NLR I need more bandwidth for research! –High-end science needs Terabits –Predictable quality interconnect –Immersive presence and the “bit rate of reality, 40Gbps” Tom Holman (USC) I need a breakable network for research! –New protocols –New devices –New architectures

3 NLR - Origins CENIC (Corporation for Network Initiatives in California) built out a multi-wavelength network based on leased dark fiber (CalREN – ) –to support multiple networks (commodity, high performance research, experimental) –to take advantage of depressed market Market opportunity could be extended to National footprint Nationwide interest in availability of a large scale network to allow for support of high end scientific applications, network research and experimentation CISCO interest in a large scale lab for network researchers

4 NLR Infrastructure Not a single network but a set of facilities, capabilities and services to build both experimental and production networks at various layers, allowing members to acquire dedicated (project specific) facilities or shared (community specific) facilities as appropriate. Most of the focus so far has been on the massive production DWDM network build out but that would change soon to focus on building the experimental networks

5 NLR – Basic Structure Dark Fiber National footprint Serves network research and very high-end experimental and research applications GB Wavelengths initially Capable of 40 10Gb wavelengths at build-out

6 NLR – Financial Structure Non-profit corporation Cover costs over a 5 year window Participation requires a commitment of $5M (US) over 5 years Initial build is a sparse network with 4 wavelengths lit Ability to add wavelengths (up to 40) at incremental cost NLR supports Production and Experimental (breakable) infrastructures at each layer (1,2, and 3)

7 Current NLR Participants Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) Pacific Northwest GigaPOP (PNWGP) Carnegie Mellon-Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Duke (representing a coalition of North Carolina universities) Mid-Atlantic Terascale Partnership Cisco Systems Internet2 Florida LambdaRail Georgia Institute of Technology Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) Oak Ridge National Laboratory Lone Star Education and Research Network (LEARN) - Texas Cornell University – New York Louisiana Board of Regents University of New Mexico ONENet (Oklahoma) Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA)

NLR - Potential Use Examples Adapted from: Network and computing research infrastructure: back to the future, Robert J. Aiken, Javad Boroumand, Stephen Wolff, Communications of the ACM,Volume 47, Number 1 (2004), Pages 93-98

9 Architecture and Initial Configuration Obtained fiber (initial build from Level 3, second stage includes other providers) – 20 year IRU’s Base NLR lambdas operated at 10 Gbps -- up to 40 lambdas Lit with Cisco gear Initial deployment is 4  10 Gig wavelengths –One 10 Gig layer three –One 8  1Gig layer two –One dedicated to Internet2 HOPI –One hot spare

10 Sunnyvale Denver Seattle LA San Diego Chicago Pitts Wash DC Raleigh Jacksonville Atlanta KC Portland Clev Boise Ogden NLR MetaPOP NLR Regen or OADM NLR Route NLR – Optical Infrastructure - Phase 1

Seattle Denver Los Angeles Cleveland Pitts Raleigh Wash DC Kansas Ogden Portland StarLight Chicago Atlanta Boise LH System ELH System Metro System Jacksonville Sunnyvale San Diego Terminal Regen (or Terminal) OADM Terminal CENIC LH System NLR Phase 1 - Installation Schedule Will Complete Aug 2004 Complete May August June July

12 Denver Seattle Sunnyvale LA San Diego Chicago Pitts Wash DC Raleigh Jacksonville Atlanta KC Baton Rouge El Paso - Las Cruces Phoenix Pensacola Dallas San Ant. Houston Albuq. Tulsa New York Clev QWEST LEVEL 3 AT&T WILTEL NLR Phase 2 – the Southern Route

13 NLR- Business Plan What are the services? –Lambdas –GigE channels (1G, 10G) How to price additional lambdas? For members and non-members. How to handle short term usage of resources? What about international collaborations?

14 Current Inquiries For dedicated waves For long term GE services For long tem 10 GE services For short term waves and channels

15 How does NLR fit with Internet2? Internet2 and NLR are at heart the same community, many of the same faces, same core goals Internet2 is an NLR founding member ($10M) Key distinction is that NLR has OWNED infrastructure to enable MULTIPLE networks and national research projects. Hybrid Optical & Packet Infrastructure (HOPI) – Abilene backbone & NLR lambdas

16 NLR - Summary Interesting new R&E owned US National Fiber Infrastructure Parts are now operational at 4  10GE Phase one to be completed by end of summer Distribution to campuses a challenge – but many regional projects are underway May still be a challenge as to how to distribute on campus Most interesting is how the demand will grow – check back next year!!

For More Information NLR: Speaker : Acknowledgements Robert J. Aiken Javad Boroumand Steve Corbato Debbie Montano Tom West light the future N L R